


Meet Ups

by pukajen



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Community: apocalyptothon, F/M, Written for the 2011
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-14
Updated: 2011-08-14
Packaged: 2017-10-22 14:38:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/239119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pukajen/pseuds/pukajen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spike briefly wondered if he was seeing a specter, or if that bloody bitch of a First was fucking with his head again. Everyone he knew was dead. Well, everyone worth knowing, he corrected himself with a wry smile.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meet Ups

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flipflop_diva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/gifts).



> Thanks to soundingsea for the amazingly quick betas. Nothing like your beta-ee leaving things until the last minute. Thanks again, sweetie!

Spike briefly wondered if he was seeing a specter, or if that bloody bitch of a First was fucking with his head again. Everyone he knew was dead. Well, everyone worth knowing, he corrected himself with a wry smile. All those he cared about, all those who were familiar, were gone. Those who were lucky died in battle. It didn’t bear contemplating those who didn’t.

When he heard from a Ghost – one of those poor bastards that were infected, but still retained most of their sentient thought – about a dark-haired slayer with a fuck-you attitude and a tattoo on her right bicep, Spike went searching, if searching was defined by hitting up the five bars left in Seattle. There was only a small community left, maybe three or four thousand humans and half as many demons of all varieties. The plague had accomplished what millennia hadn’t been able to: everyone lived together, worked together, died together, uneasily aligned on the same side.

As he looked around the Terrible Beauty, what was once a busy Irish bar in West Seattle and now had boards for windows, seven chairs, three tables, and dozen barstools, Spike silently mocked all those who had sought to destroy the world for the fun of it.

Turns out, when the world ended it wasn’t that fun at all. Fuckers. He hoped most of them were still alive to see exactly how boring and hard armageddon was.

“Jail bird,” Spike said, sliding onto a bar stool next to Faith, “been a while.”

“For both of us,” she said, not looking at him. “What’s it been like what, four years? Five?”

“Two.” Spike couldn’t tell if she knew the right passage of time or, if like so many others, she had stopped counting when hours felt like days and weeks like months. “Since the wake for the Carpenter.”

There were no burials any more; bodies were stripped of any useful objects, drained of blood if their blood was disease free, and burned. It was an efficient process. If the dead had anyone left to mourn them, it was done away from the pyre and in the safety of one of the few cities left.

“What can I get you?” the demon behind the bar asked, his eyes glowing green.

Spike only barely managed to suppress his shudder; the bartender was an ashyx, the same manner of being who gave him his soul. Hard times and all that, Spike thought.

“Blood and whiskey,” Spike said, keeping his eyes on Faith.

“Out of whiskey.”

“Bourbon.”

“Out of bourbon.”

“Vodka.”

“Out of vodka.”

“Well, what do you bloody well have?”

“Ouzo.”

“Bugger it,” Spike growled. “It’ll be blood and ouzo then, won’t it?”

“What do you got to trade?”

Sighing, Spike reached inside his duffle and pulled out a cheap pair of purple framed reading glasses.

“That’ll only get you two drinks.”

“Start pouring.” Spike eyed Faith’s glass. “How come you got whiskey?”

“Who do you think finished it?” she asked, grinning at him and raising her glass. “How’s it hanging, blondie?”

Though it had been nearly a year since his hair had seen any bleach, Spike smirked back at her. “Long and to the left.”

Never one to back down from a fight or turn down a dare, however overt, Faith eyed him up and down. “Couldn’t tell by looking. Think you’ve got an overinflated sense of yourself.”

“There’s never been anything wrong with my—” Spike paused and gave her a look filled with heat and knowledge, “ego.”

Snorting, Faith took a sip of her drink, grimacing when what was obviously crap whiskey burned a layer of skin from her throat.

“What sort of nasty things have you been up to?” Faith asked, setting her near-empty glass back on the bar top.

“Ones that would turn your hair white and have you cowering under a table.” Spike took a long swallow of his own drink and imagined the stale blood and paint stripperesque ouzo was palatable.

In a companionable exchange of one-upmanship stories, they told incredibly embellished tales of fights they’d been in, of idiots whom they should have killed or at the very least forcibly relieved of any items of value. As time passed they fell to mocking the gullibility of those who whispered reverently about areas the size of Australia where people lived, untouched by the plague.

The banter was meaningless and so very easy to fall into.

Not once did they mention the names of those who were dead; not once did they allude to the fact that two of the worst were still around, still living lives – pathetic as they were – while those who deserved to have survived, those who always fought the good fight, always sacrificed themselves for the better of the world, were dead.

Or worse.

When Faith’s jaw cracked in a yawn she didn’t even try to hide, Spike looked around and noticed that except for a group of two vamps, a vengeance demon, and a wan-shang dole playing a fairly intense game of mahjong, they were the only customers left.

“I got a place,” he said into the silence. “If you want somewhere to get some shut-eye.”

It was hard to tell if it was night or day. There wasn’t really any sun any more, not after the various gases and nuclear devices that humans and demons alike set off futile in attempts to exterminate the Infected. Just dark and murky. It was a rare day when Spike needed to worry about the sun.

“Yeah?” She looked at him speculatively. “I wouldn’t mind crashing with you.” Her words implied that she was open to more than sleep.

“Yeah.” Standing, Spike stretched and headed for the door, not looking to see if she was going to follow him.

When he heard footsteps crossing California Avenue break into a jog to catch up to him, Spike paused, bracing hiself, but it only took him a split second to recognize the Slayer’s gait.

“So,” she said as she fell into step next to him, “your place got cable?”

###

Watery light was making its way through the ever-present clouds; it might be June in LA, but the sun never really shone anymore. Faith wandered down Rodeo Drive, picturing the stores as they must have looked ten years ago. In her mind, the hollowed-out storefronts still had their sparkling plate glass windows showing off thousand dollar sunglasses and handmade leather shoes that cost more than most cars.

Despite her most recent brush with death, Faith was not only the oldest Slayer on record, but eleven years after the fall of the governments and the official start of the end of the world – at least one the world actually knew about – she was one of the older survivors.

There were children being born, but unless they were lucky enough to be born with the antibody or a natural immunity, most didn’t make it. Though whether the ones who lived were the lucky ones Faith thought was up to some serious debate.

A movement at the end of the street caught her eye and Faith ducked into what had once been a Dolce & Gabbana boutique. When she heard nothing but the rustle of wind and her own heart pounding, she slowly stuck her head out.

“A goddamned mother fucking flag?” Faith said aloud, completely disgusted with herself. Near the third story of the building at the end of the block, what remained of a tattered California state flag flapped listlessly in the nearly nonexistent breeze.

“This is what happens when I spend too much time alone; I become jumpier than a virgin on prom night.” This time when she walked down the street, she didn’t let herself remember what once was, but forced herself to stay alert. “Also, I start to talk to myself like a crazy person.”

There was a hotel nearby, if her memory of LA wasn’t completely screwed thanks to the various headgames and drugs she’d gone through on her prior visits. Not that there’d be any food left, but a nice soft bed would be great. She couldn’t remember the last time when she’d slept in a real bed.

Also, if she got a room that was high up and overlooked the city, maybe she could see if there were any signs of life nearby.

When she heard the sounds of fighting, the urge to charge in warred with the need to flee and protect herself. For the last three weeks, Faith had taken to hiding out – staying away from both uninfected towns and the questionable territory of the Empty – too weak to fight, too filled with self-preservation to stay in one place alone for long.

The bitch of it was, she hadn’t been injured in a fight, nor was she hiding out from anyone. Hell, these days it had to be a pretty serious offense to get anyone to actively hunt someone. Not that she hadn’t pissed off a vengeance demon with goat horns something fierce, and he’d followed her for days, but even he’d given up eventually.

No, it was a freaking cold that turned nasty and developed into pneumonia that kept her down and closer to death than she liked to think about. Her dulled reflexes and deep, body-shaking cough would have made her easy prey for the Infected, even those in the last stages, and her symptoms would have been viewed with suspicion by those struggling to stay alive.

In the two days since she arrived in LA, the only encounter she’d had was with an Infected who was so starved their fight had been more of a mercy killing. It had been weeks since she’d seen another person, longer since she’d had a conversation with anyone other than herself.

In the end, it was the need to talk to another being that made up her mind. For all that she claimed to be a loner, Faith needed contact with others, even if it was biting remarks and nasty taunts, or fast, hot couplings in the dark.

In a heartbeat she assessed the situation: one vamp with a familiar fighting style, and five Infected. From their jerky, yet semi-coordinated movements, Faith guessed that they still had at least enough brain power left to try to fight as a unit.

“Well, shit, kids, these odds don’t seem fair,” she said, sauntering into the skeletal doors of the Beverly Hills Four Seasons. Despite the derelict state, Faith fleetingly wondered if this is how Julia Roberts’ character felt the first time she’d strolled through the lobby.

“You gonna give us a hand or just gawk?”

The British accent would have been a jolt if Faith hadn’t recognized the fighting style. The last time she’d seen Spike, he’d been sound asleep and naked, her body still aching from their wild fucking.

“Always so impatient,” Faith muttered, before drawing her sword. While she seemed to be one of the lucky – or unlucky depending on how you thought about it – few who were apparently uninfectable, Faith preferred to stay out of touching distance.

There was a Beretta M9 tucked securely into her belt at the small of her back, but since bullets were more precious than food, she didn’t want to use it unless she had to. Still, the hard weight offered her silent reassurance. Bullets tore through flesh just the same in Infected as they did in the uninfected.

Over the years, she and Spike had fought against and with each other often enough that when she entered the melee, Faith didn’t need to worry about accidently chopping off his head. With the odds more even, the fight was over within minutes.

Faith was chagrinned to find herself panting as she wiped off her sword on the arm of a chair that was missing the other arm and most of its stuffing.

“You should lay off the smokes,” Spike said as he lit a cigarette.

“Bite me,” Faith sneered, forcing herself to take long even breaths. In. Out. In. Out. In. A coughing fit seized her and Faith wrapped her arms around ribs that still twinged.

“That doesn’t sound too good, luv.”

Faith was touched to see him crushing the cigarette out under the sole of his left boot. They were almost as hard to come by as bullets.

“I guess I’m not up to full zombie fighting power yet.” Her voice was raspy from coughing and she still needed to take short breaths. “I had a bit of a cold.”

Spike arched a brow at her, but didn’t push for more. “What brings you to not-so-sunny Los Angeles?”

“Wanted to see the old stomping grounds. Figured Beverly Hills was as good a place to start as any.” She eyed him up and down, taking in the combat pants, the still-healing scar on his right hand that went up under the cuff of his fatigue coat. “Look at you, all dressed up like GI Joe.”

“Better than homeless Barbie.”

“Barbie never had leather pants that fit this nicely,” Faith growled, ignoring the fact that she wore a pink shirt with purple daises and matching Chucks.

“Could be true, but you have a smell of alleyway that I don’t remember the plastic doll having.”

“I still carry a stake,” Faith muttered, trying to sniff to see if she really did smell that bad.

“There’s a room on the top floor with a bath and supplies, if you’re interested.”

Much like the night in the bar, he walked away without seeing if she was following.

Unlike that night, Faith didn’t even debate whether to follow him or not.

###

He should wonder what she was doing here in the little empire he’d created in what used to be Caesar’s Place in Vegas, but after their last parting of ways, Spike vowed that nothing she did would surprise him again.

“Faith,” he acknowledged. Not by a flicker did he betray the wild mix of emotions swirling inside: joy that she was still alive, irritation that it seemed she was intentionally seeking him out, sadness at a life lost and friends long dead, speculation on if she’d share his bed again, or the back seat of his car, or a wall, tree, handy boulder, empty store…

“Spike, I need your help.”

“Of course you do, luv.” He tried not to notice the fading bruises on her cheek, or the way she kept her arm tight to her side. “Now that I’ve made a name for myself all sorts of people from my past are seeking out their old friend Spike to lend a hand here, feed a family there. Got my own little fiefdom running along as happy as you please, so of course it’s now that you come to ask me for something.”

After three months of traveling together, fighting, fucking, he had woken to find her gone. Nothing since Buffy’s deaths – both her leap from the tower, and the real, final one, the one she didn’t come back from – had torn such a hole in his heart. What he felt for this darkly defiant beauty wasn’t exactly love; they were too alike, too distrustful. Both had hearts of glass too poorly protected with walls of briars for something lasting and true to form between them. No, it wasn’t love, but it was a camaraderie, a familiarity, a link to the past that Spike both cherished and despaired over.

“Look,” she said, crossing her arms under her breasts, “I know I took off without the sloppy group hug, but you can’t tell me you weren’t a little relieved to find me gone.”

“Goodbyes aren’t what’s sloppy when I think of you,” he snarked and ignored the way his gut twisted when she lost what little color her face had.

“And here I thought you liked standing in line to see what fell down to you in the gutter.”

Spike took the verbal hit, but stood and walked to her. All around him work stopped and people held themselves still as if knowing that there was about to be an eruption of epic proportions. If nothing else, in the years since most of humanity had been wiped off the face of the planet – or wished they had – Spike finally learned how to hold his tongue.

“Let’s take this to my room,” he said curtly.

Or at least to hold it long enough to let loose without an audience.

Turning on his heels, Spike strode through the casino floor; old slot machines – many still in near-mint condition – gleamed dully as he strode by them. The gaming tables were now stripped of their fabric and sat in piles of usable materials, causing Spike to idly wonder what he would do with so much green felt.

“I’m on the seventh floor,” he told her as they reached the stairs next to the completely useless service elevator. “Can you make the climb?”

“I just crossed Death Valley,” was her only response.

And so they climbed in silence. When they made the turn to start up the fifth flight of stairs, Spike could hear her pulse pounding as if it were his own and the ragged gasps of her breath echoed off the walls.

“Not gonna die on me are you, Princess?”

“Fuck,” she gasped, “you.”

“Right then, two more to go.” And Spike charged up the rest.

When they got to his room, Spike wordlessly handed her a plastic bottle of water that still had the original label with a gold bust of Caesar wearing a laurel crown.

“Once you’re not gasping like a fish out of water, why don’t you tell me what kind of trouble you’ve gotten yourself into.”

In the end, it was fairly simple and so typical of the girl that Spike wanted to laugh. Or cry. And, because he seemed to have sucker tattooed on him when it came to a very specific set of women, he helped her.

For the first time since the Carpenter’s death, they didn’t fuck each other blind within minutes of seeing each other. Nor did they have conversations that were filled with sharp cracks and score cards. For the most part they lived their lives and when Spike woke one morning nearly four months later and found the adjoining room empty, he wondered if he would ever see her again. Whether he wanted to go through all the memories that came up when they met and the sorrow of knowing the one person who was still alive from his old life wasn’t necessarily the one he’d have wanted around.


End file.
